Starlight
by Alternatively
Summary: If that kiss had never happened... An alternative post-war Ron-and-Hermione turning point.


Her eyes were starting to tire, blurring the words on the page, and slipping away to gaze at the glowing coals in the hearth. Reading long into the dark night, curled into the corner of an armchair, wrapped in one of his old jumpers… perhaps that would be enough to help her fall asleep…

The Burrow at night was soft and warm, creaking with the sounds of old construction magics, gently aloud with the sounds of sleeping, faint snores from upstairs, and night noises outside. She felt safe here, as safe as she felt anywhere. And the jumper helped.

She couldn't work out how to tell his mother that she needed to sleep in the same room as him.

She tucked a bookmark in between the pages, and wedged _Goblin Rebellions: New Perspectives_ in beside her, shifting the patched cushions, and letting her eyelids droop.

The fire was mesmerising.

Orange.

Like him.

She was starting to drift. Just a little bit.

She tried not to think about sleep. Not to think about how desperately she wanted it, or how scared she was of the nightmares that dragged her back to reality screaming with fear.

Soft sounds caught her ears, and a creaking floorboard pulled her sharply awake.

Someone was sneaking down the stairs.

Her breath caught, heart beating loudly in her head. If it was him… If he came down… could she say something?

They were all too fragile, it was all too soon, and his grief had to take priority.

But it was him on the stairs.

She peered around the back of the chair, eyes tracing his shape through the dim light, lanky, stepping lightly with his big socked feet, carrying a pillow and an old blanket under one arm. He had such a distinctive gait. Loose-limbed and somehow guilty… probably it was just the way he ducked his head down to fit through doorways… it always looked apologetic…

Perhaps he was coming down to sit with her.

Perhaps he knew she was waiting…

But he didn't turn towards the dim light of the dying fire. She watched as he headed down the short hallway towards the front door. She heard the quiet scuffing sounds of shoes being pulled on, and the click of the door opening and closing. She sat, waiting…

It was too late, and she was too tired to think through all the possibilities, options, and consequences. She stretched and extracted herself from the chair.

At least it was a distraction.

And she needed to know he was safe.

And if he was just sneaking off to be alone, well, she didn't need to disturb him.

Just… keep him safe.

She snuck out to the hallway and fumbled with the cloaks on their pegs. She gave up, and slipped her feet into Ginny's gumboots, hand on the door handle before her left foot was securely in place.

What if he was flying somewhere?

Was it mad to follow him?

The night was moonless and still, disturbed only by a light breeze, fresh and green-scented, summery and sad. She felt the warmth of inside start to blow away in the cool air, and cast a few silent charms to muffle her footsteps, to hide her, and keep her safe.

Walking out into the yard, she felt strangely free, as though the darkness of night was a kindness, and as her eyes adjusted she found him, the rhythmic movement of his steps, a black shape heading in the direction of the orchard…

The ground was soft, grass damp with dew, muddy in places where paths had been worn by years of Weasley feet. She walked carefully, knowing that any loud or sudden noises would not be muted by the charms.

She shouldn't be following him.

It was invasive.

She knew that.

But her eyes were drawn to the dark shape ahead of her.

Bewitched.

Lured.

She followed him through the apple orchard, trudging between the trees standing sentinel all around her, waiting with the burden of unripe apples, hard and green overhead…

She couldn't think about what she would say or do if he realised she was there. She couldn't think about anything really, except existing, being alive, walking through the night, with her eyes straining and her hair loose, and her feet warm in the thick socks she'd bought with him last week, when they'd sworn, all three of them, never to put up with threadbare holey socks ever again…

They were out of the orchard, the darkness less intense, interrupted by the soft light of stars. He didn't stop, dipping up higher as he climbed over the stile into a fallow field of wildflowers and long grasses, striking out diagonally to where the ground sloped up into a lone hillock topped with a few trees, a looming dark shape in the night.

She found herself smiling as she clambered over the stile; he'd made it look easy, one step up one step down, but it was clumsy with shorter legs. The wood under her hands was damp and rough, and as she stepped down the breeze picked up, throwing her hair back and bringing with it the scents of all the wild grasses, clean and growing, gently touched with silver in the night.

Somehow sensation was overwhelming, her breath, her heartbeat, where the wool of the jumper was scratching against her neck, even the way the ground felt under the gumboots, and the way her hips ached from sitting in the armchair for so long, the way her heart ached from being away from him for so long…

Grasseheads brushed against her legs, and she followed in his footsteps, his path through the field marked by a dark line.

She made her way up the hill behind him, cautiously, because he was slowing down, turning his head left and right as though considering the location. This was the place. For whatever it was he was doing, this was it.

Hermione peeled off, leaving the path and striking out sideways, curving around the side of the hill, hidden from view and aiming for the shelter of the trees, a vantage point. The slope was uneven, broken here and there by rocks, and she found her eyes straining again in the darkness to avoid tripping.

It felt like a very long time, walking around, out of sight, unable to see him. She drew in line with the tallest of the trees, and stepped in close, hand against the trunk, fingers recognising the grooved texture as oak.

From this vantage point, she could see out across the fields and orchard, to the dark shape of the Burrow, crouched in a gentle dip in the land… but her eyes pulled her back to him. Standing there in the shadows, she watched as he fussed over the blanket, spreading it on the ground and tweaking it straight and flat, casting charms over it, incantations she didn't recognise, spells she'd never heard of… where he'd found them she had no idea, some of them sounded foreign, and some seemed made up, and it was too dark to see what they all did but the blanket grew thicker, puffing up from the ground.

Her breath sounded loud in her ears, and if it weren't for the charms she would've felt certain that he could hear her.

He had a bag too, and he was pulling things out, small things, and placing them out around the blanket, meticulously moving them… he produced something long and thin and limp… a tape measure? An unusual degree of precision for him.

She stood transfixed, watching him work, waiting to see what the point was, why he had come out here with half his bedding and a load of unusual magics…

He bewitched the pillow, making it a bit narrower and longer, placed it down at one end of the blanket, and produced an old quilt, making it up like a bed, carefully tucking all the edges in. He paused, flipping his wand through his fingers, an odd little habit she recognised from History of Magic classes, a symptom of Ron thinking about something else.

He slipped out of his shoes, abandoning them askew at the foot of the makeshift bed and crawled up to climb underneath the quilt.

It was beautiful.

She still wasn't entirely sure what she was watching, but it seemed to her that he had come outside in the middle of the night to sleep on the top of a hill, for no logical reason at all. The enchantment of the world in darkness, and all the peaceful quiet that went along with it was something she had never considered in all those months on the run, cold and wet and hungry. But here, the night was a blessing. She leant against the oak and felt some of the tension leave her. He was safe. They were safe.

And she could watch over him until morning.

"Are you going to join me?"

She started, his voice clear and calm, a little gravelly from lack of use.

"Hermione?"

She flicked her wand, letting the charms dissolve around her as she stepped out of her hiding place.

"What gave me away?"

She had a sense he was smiling.

"Your shampoo. When you circled round you got in the way of the breeze."

"Oh."

She came closer, avoiding the odd assortment of objects that formed a circle around him.

"I'll activate that in a minute," he said quietly, "That's the protective magics,"

She nodded, though she wasn't sure what he meant, pulled off the gumboots awkwardly, and sank to her knees, crawling up towards the pillow. He lifted the edge of the quilt for her and she wriggled in beside him, surprised at how comfortable the blanket was beneath her, soft and supportive. She pulled her hair out of the way and tugged the jumper into place.

"Ready?"

"I suppose so. I've never seen this sort of thing before."

He chuckled.

"It's never been done before,"

He sounded pleased with himself, and she felt a surge of pride. He was finding his way.

He might even find his way to her.

A few muttered incantations, and a dome of blue light flickered into place over the top of them and vanished.

"It's a sphere, really," he explained, "Didn't make sense to leave it vulnerable to attack from beneath. I mean, you want to feel safe if you're trying to sleep, right?"

"Absolutely,"

If only he knew how true that was.

"It's been tricky, working out what to let in and what not to let in- obviously, air is fine, but things like magic and water aren't- but it's better if you can cast magic _out_ just not _in,_ if you see what I mean,"

She turned onto her side and shuffled in closer, hoping to be able to read him better. He was right there. And he was Ron. It was all she could do not to sigh with relief and exhaustion.

"Is this an invention?"

"I guess so, yeah. I mean, it's just a bit of bedding and a bunch of spells, but, yeah I guess."

"What is it for?"

He was very still beside her. Eventually he sighed. A sad sigh filled with regret.

"I was damn useless last year. I want to make sure I've got something to contribute next time."

She leant up on her elbow and peered at him.

"Next time?"

He looked sad.

"Nothing much has really changed. People are still people. History always repeats itself. And the system still sucks."

"That's a somewhat pessimistic perspective."

The starlight was making his eyes shine, dark and solemn.

"I don't believe in divination," he said, "But I keep having this nightmare that it's not just us, that it's thousands of people on the run, drowning at sea, dying of starvation, packed into makeshift camps… I dunno. It's stupid. If that happens, I want to have something to offer. And if not… well, if I get it right, maybe I can talk George into selling it as a camping range through Wheezies," he gave a lopsided half-smile, and she was suddenly very aware of how close she was to him, her wild hair brushing the side of his face.

"Don't look so devastated," he said quietly, "Of all of us you were always the least naïve. You know genocide is part of being human."

An unexpected tear tracked down her cheek. She brushed it away impatiently, furious at herself.

"Stop being so depressing, you're ruining a perfectly good night!"

He chuckled.

"That's better,"

"What is?"

He paused.

"I thought for a while there we were losing you. Haven't had a decent scolding in a while,"

"I've been _trying_ to be sensitive to your grieving process,"

"You've been absolutely fucking miserable,"

Her breath caught.

"True."

He lay still beside her, gazing up into her face. The breeze was still catching her hair, and she was starting to droop again, succumbing to the desire to put her head on the pillow, tuck her hand around his upper arm, and close her eyes.

"I find it helps if I look at the stars," he said, wriggling further under the quilt. "Once your eyes adjust and you can see all the different colours… I dunno, it's just nice to be reminded that there are still things that are beautiful, y'know?"

There was something devastating about it, all of it, about Ron sneaking out to test new magics in the dead of night, about how sad she felt, and how inevitable human tragedy was, and how endlessly the universe was expanding…

"I can't breathe,"

"C'mere," He shuffled about again and reached for her, wrapping his long arms around her and pulling her in close against his chest. Her eyes itched with tiredness, and he was so warm and solid and real. "Is that better?"

She let out a huff of amusement.

But it was better.

She curled her fingers into the front of his jumper.

It was safe in his arms, and the makeshift bed was impressively comfortable, and the sweetly scented breeze was still somehow freeing… she struggled to keep her eyes open, gazing up into the night sky, freckled with multicoloured stars…

It rained in the early hours of morning, soaking rain that ran off the dome of magic and kept them perfectly dry. They both half-woke when it started, and he grinned sleepily, rolling on to his side and tucking his nose in beside her cheek before falling asleep again.

The dawn came with a rosy glow and pale sunlight striking golden off the fields and orchards, the sky pale and new, the smell of rain on the earth promising new things… the breeze had swept away the cobwebs, and the night beside him had kept her safe. There were still things she couldn't say, places they hadn't been, and the truth about the cruelty of humanity was so completely unanswerable, but somehow, in the night, she'd let go of it all, surrendered to the terror of chaos and slipped peacefully into a state of calm.

The light painted his sleeping features delicately, every eyelash and freckle, his laughter lines, and tiny scars, the burnished glow of his hair… she had never been this close before, in a position to study him in such detail… and he was right… sometimes all it took was to be reminded of something beautiful…


End file.
